Department of Administration bill faces Senate debate next week

Though it has moved through the committee process quickly, the latest incarnation of the Department of Administration-state government restructuring bill will face opposition in the full Senate from both parties. The snag is procurement; the new bill puts all of that purchasing power under the new Department of Adminstration, thus, under the governor.

The governor is pushing again for reforming the structure of state government- away from the Budget and Control Board agency she has labeled as wasteful and “the big green monster.”

Powerful Finance Committee Chairman Hugh Leatherman (R-Florence) did not like that change before and is unlikely to support it now.

Leatherman sits on the five-member legislative-executive Budget and Control Board, which would no longer exist under the new measure. Instead, a similar group, called the State Fiscal Accountability Authority (see below), would oversee bonding decisions and its power is significantly pared down.

Next week, unless the bill gets shunted to the Finance Committee for further review, senators will be working from the proposed government chart below: